


Sympathy for the Devil

by fractalsinthesky



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 07:31:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16035833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractalsinthesky/pseuds/fractalsinthesky
Summary: You do what you can, taking small bites out of their operations and saving whatever's left to save. Nipping at their heels until you have their attention, until you force their hands. And each time you chew them up, spit them out, see how their bones pile up on the edge of your plate, but you can't go through this without feeling something, without changing. Maybe that's the point.Snapshots of the ends of the Heralds, with a Deputy that knows due process won't cut it but feels bad anyway.





	Sympathy for the Devil

The streets are empty and the trees are decked with bolts of filmy white when you arrive, footsore and panting, the radio at your hip heavy with silence. Ribbons twine around the arbor, the sickly sweet smell of Bliss bouquets perfuming the air, white petals scattered across a long red carpet, and the first thought that pops into your head, unwelcome, is that it looks like a wedding. There’s no guard posted at the door, and your heart falls. You took too long. You left an impatient man at the altar, so he’s left you a ghost town and a church full of bodies.

The smell of carrion. Black birds nailed around the threshold, along the roof, jagged against the pale blue sky, and you wrinkle your nose. _One for sorrow, two for joy—three for a girl, four for a boy,_ murmurs the last memory of your grandmother from her bed, counting crows through a haze of dementia, but she never gets past four, just keeps starting over, and there are easily fifteen up there, the bright beads of their eyes filmed over in death.

You adjust the strap of your rifle, reaching for the door and resigning yourself for more loss, but it opens before you touch the handle and someone introduces your brainpan to the polished butt of a shotgun.

Pain registers before you swim up through the black tar of unconsciousness, the slow collection of fireflies into the mason jar of your mind as something hot and insistent bites at your chest. You roll, groaning, only to be pushed back to the cool floorboards and he is above you, vest swollen with pride, smile satisfied and relieved as he marks you with his own sin. You are too tired and dizzy to fight, your brain a gray puddle pooling at the back of your skull, but he won’t let you rest—voice ringing against the eaves as he springs away. Sweaty hands haul you up, steady you and push you forward, keep you audience to each step of his dance, and you feel strangely embarrassed at the sight of your friends, bound and hollow-eyed in a semicircle at the pulpit. Each previous encounter had been uncomfortable in a different way, perversely intimate, but the deliberate publicity of this latest stunt had an air of finality that crawled up your spine.

He is manic, all grins and expansive gestures, and why shouldn’t he be? He’s got what he wanted, and you and the others are helpless participants in his sick, sad pantomime. _Play along, get out alive,_ you think, eyeing the gun at your captor’s side and wondering if you have the coordination yet to snatch it.

Nick isn’t the ‘play along’ type, and his defiance gives the other man the excuse he’s been waiting for. What use is carrying a big stick if you never get to use it, after all? You look away, grimace at the sound of flesh being sawed away, John’s excited panting over Nick’s pained moans, and the guilty stares of your friends flicker away like minnows from disturbed water.

John’s face is flushed, transported with victory as he raises GREED in red hands for his witnesses to marvel at. He licks his lips, hunger showing when blue eyes find yours, and you wonder if he already feels disappointment edging in, hot and itching at his spine with the hurried execution of another long-anticipated plan. You debate pushing him into instability, but he’s wise to that game now, and makes it clear that Jerome will pay the price for any faltering of your cooperation. The Pastor shoves his bible towards you, eyes intent, and you remember that the word of God is spoken in .50 caliber.

He looks at you with something like affection when you tell him what he wants to hear—a soft smile, eyes shining as if you can save him, but you can’t and the best you can give him is a shot that goes wide, taking a red bite of his ear and then that eagerness turns to pain and fear and he is ushered away as fire breaks out in the church. You duck and fumble over the pews, trying to get out and get this over with before he gets too far away, but there are too many pawns to take off the board, and then you’re in a truck following his dust trail, Mary May on the homemade turret behind you, shouting encouragement through a busted lip even though you’re pretty sure the person without the concussion should be operating this piece of heavy machinery. And then you feel sick because he’s up in the air which means you have to follow him, and one improvisational lesson with Nick a week ago does not a qualified pilot make.

You wrestle with the controls, avoiding his fire more out of luck than skill, ears ringing too loudly to hear what he’s hissing at you over the radio. Your heart is beating disconcertingly fast and your gasps are fogging the windshield, but Nick’s voice comes out of your console and a yellow blur streaks after the black, fire rattling holes in the glossy paint.

You hear the explosion before you see it, and you’re almost disappointed. You’d imagined it differently, weirdly wanted to see him again before—the gray mushroom of a parachute catches your eye. It’s moving slowly, so slowly you need to squint to make sure it’s moving at all, and then you scramble to find a place to put down. Miraculously, a stretch of the highway is clear and you stumble out of the cockpit as soon as it’s slowed down enough to be safe.

Everything’s different from the ground, and for a moment you’ve actually lost him, scanning the tall trees frantically. But there’s a flash of gray and you’re off, rifle bouncing against your shoulder blades as you race across the pavement and lurch through the bushes. His voice is ragged over the radio, tired and broken but affectionate—assuring, and this time the words are not for you. You swallow, noting the sour taste of resentment that has sunk into your tongue, but grit your teeth and run on, pushing reflection to the back of your skull. There was a line. He didn’t have to cross it, but he did. And doing so made your job that much easier.

You break through the treeline, see the gray crumple of tension released at the top of the rise, and urge yourself into a thigh-burning jog up the slope, rifle at the ready. He’s freed himself from the straps and staggered off down the other side, and in the panicked instant you see that sweeping coat, the wink of silver in a loose swinging hand, and you shoot him in the back. Three shots, neat dark starbursts just below his shoulder, and he falls with a sharp cry that shouldn’t make you feel bad—not after all he’s done—but it does, and you tell yourself the pain in your gut as you rush over isn’t concern, because how fucked up would that be?

Pretty fucked up.

You fall to your knees in the mud next to him and roll him over, heart small and shivering against your ribs. Is it over, is it over, is it—no, he’s gray and there’s a wet, dragging to his breath that is just awful, but he’s still breathing and there’s a sharpness to the thin blue eyes that you haven’t seen before.

“I’m sorry,” you say without thinking, but he’s coughing blood over the grass and doesn’t react. The key to Hudson slides out of his vest, black cord slipping against the uneven etching of SLOTH. You grab for it, the back of your fist grazing his chest, grazing grit from the mud and cold sweat from the pain and the bizarre comfort of warm skin and this monster is human, human, human like everyone else you’ve ever killed, and you choke when he grabs your wrist.

His fingers are slick with mud and blood and strong with the fear of death, but his eyes are steady and suddenly sane and you want to scream until the delirium comes back, until he’s the snake curled again in readiness, confident, dripping poison from his lips instead of blood because that would be better, would be easier.

But he’s just a man, and from this angle you see the lines under his eyes, the earnest furrow of his brow, and when he speaks it’s more honest, more direct than you thought he could ever be—the ravings calmed by the taste of the end, and you let him hang onto you because the things he’s saying are true and you’ve thought them yourself. Then you remember the bodies in the fields, the bruises at your throat, the smell of Nick’s blood sick and fresh in the church and you tear yourself away, tears burning at your eyes.

It could have been different! your throat clenches around the words, closed around them with selfish heat. If you hadn’t hidden behind God, behind a cryptic fucking doctrine, if you hadn’t taken and taken and taken and filled the valley with blood—These people might have listened to you! They might have loved you!

He sees the struggle on your face and somehow doesn’t need to hear the words piling up behind your bared teeth. Satisfaction, pity, peace. He lets you go, falls back in the dirt, and it’s over. And it’s not fair.

Your fist tightens around the key and you punch down in the mud, needing to feel the metal bite your flesh, the earth jar your bones. It’s not fair, it’s not fair—it’s not enough! You howl at the uncaring trees, voice rough and scraping with the hot, sobbing frustration of it all. Your jeans are soaked through and cold, and the flannel at the back of your neck is sticking with sweat and there are a thousand little aches and pains creeping back into your tired flesh already and it’s not fair. 

Static at your hip, gunfire in the distance. The monster is dead but the tale isn’t finished, and you’ve got to get up but you can’t, you can’t. Not yet. 

You slump and you sob in the dirt by a dead man and there’s a hundred reasons for you to be gone already, but you don’t have the energy to stand. You feel hollow but heavy, and so goddamn old, only twenty-four but ancient with grief and resentment and the hungry pain of anger. It’s not supposed to be like this. You don’t know what it’s supposed to be like, but you know it’s shouldn’t be this.

You’re lucky a friend finds you first, crushing you in a hug that smells like smoke and sweat and weed, and it’s too familiar and fucking _normal_ and you can’t explain why you’re crying, can’t explain that his stuttered assurances in your ear make you feel small and lost, and you just need everything to stop. You can’t explain, but you’re lucky twice over because he stops asking you to and just holds you, and you can steady yourself against the tide of his breath and the blessed warmth of another body against yours. When he feels that you’re calmed, he gives your back a few claps and flashes a crooked smile, jerking his head toward the trees.

“We got a shitload of dudes on the way over, ‘migo. Me an’ you gotta beat feet, y’hear?”

You nod and let him help you up, following him back into the woods and towards the next inevitable tragedy.


End file.
